Speakers universally use slides during a speech or presentation to explain or illustrate the topic. They use slides for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the speech is technical and slides are necessary to impart subject matter comprehension to the audience. At other times slides are used to add to the richness of the presentation or to hold the attention of the audience. For example, a speaker talking about drought in Africa can effectively use slides showing rainfall amounts in various regions of Africa from a historical perspective. Slides can be included in such a presentation to demonstrate the extent of such a drought and its effects on the local population and economy caused by declines in agricultural productivity.
Slides are also used by a speaker as a guide or outline in making the presentation to enable the audience to follow the presentation in an orderly manner. As used herein, the terms “slide” or “slides” include both actual photographic transparency slides as well as computer-generated slides, such as those used in a PowerPoint® presentation, as well as any equivalent thereof. (PowerPoint® is commercially available from the Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash.) Any such slide or slide-type medium are intended to be included within the meaning of “slide” as such term is used herein and all are within the intended scope of the invention described herein.
In making a presentation the allocation of time during the presentation and keeping to the time schedule is always a challenge. Frequently a speaker will get so involved in some aspect of the presentation that little time remains for the remainder of the presentation. In such case, the speaker inevitably has to rush through all or portion of the presentation and frequently runs over the allocated time. In some cases a speaker will encounter timing issues due to audience participation when someone either asks a question or offers their own commentary during the presentation. Hereinafter this kind of audience participation as well as invited audience participation, such as a question and answer period, is called “audience interaction.” Audience interaction during the presentation will generally get the speaker off time with the result that all or a portion of the presentation is rushed or an incomplete presentation is made.
The current state of the art for a slide presentation generally involves using a computer to show slides. The slide presentation is preloaded and projected on a screen. These slides range from photographs loaded into the computer memory to information or outline slides created on the computer by or for the speaker. A favorite presentation application currently being uses by many speakers is PowerPoint®. Although many presentations are in a PowerPoint® format, other presentation software and formats are available, and others will likely be developed in the future. Regardless of the presentation software or format, the speaker is still faced with the problem of covering the subject within an allocated time. One aspect of PowerPoint® provides limited help to a speaker by including a count down feature that shows the time allocated to a presentation which can be displayed as either time expended or time remaining. While this is suitable for some purposes, what is needed in the art is a more comprehensive and information-rich system and method for allocating slide presentation time to slides in a manner predetermined by the speaker.